


Lightning

by orangelightsaber



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Anal Sex, Bitter Exes, Force Lightning, Frottage, M/M, Memory Loss, Possessive Behavior, insecure space jerks, manipulative Snoke, messing with relationships just to fuck with them, now with illustration, pain play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 07:03:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7791550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangelightsaber/pseuds/orangelightsaber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux isn't sure whether Snoke has wiped Kylo's memories after Starkiller. He's not sure he wants to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> The power went out during a mad thunderstorm at my apartment. Watched the lightning and wrote this self-indulgent smut instead.

 

 

“Ren?” calls Hux, rapping hard on the durasteel door with his knuckles. “You were supposed to be on the bridge an hour ago.”

 

There's no answer. Brilliant light arcs across the corridor’s viewport, searing everything crimson. The overhead panels flicker and dim. That damned electrical storm seems to be following them. They’d be set back days at best, weeks if the surges managed to reach a hyperdrive.

 

“ _Ren,_ ” he tries again, more insistent, slapping at the door with an open palm. _Kriff_ , what was that insufferable child doing? Probably sleeping late. That seemed like something Ren would do, self-important and self-indulgent. The thought infuriates him, and he finds his fingers punching in the override code before his brain has quite caught up to them.

 

The door slides open.

 

The room is, as he remembers, a disaster. Clothing, holopads, and the wreckage of what might have once been a droid strewn about, cluttering the floor. He prods at Ren’s helmet with a booted toe. The sight of it surprises him—he hasn’t seen Ren without it since, well since _before_.

A small sound draws his attention. He thinks at first that Ren’s mess must have attracted vermin—as thin and pitiful as the noise is it must be a rodent of some sort. But then it comes again and he recognizes it for what it is—a sob, cracked and raw.

 

He stumbles through the half-dark room, dodging piles of debris by the intermittent flashes of the storm.

 

He nearly cries out as a dark shape in the corner shifts, but catches his tongue at the last second, steeling it behind military discipline. A shadow with a pale face and pale hands lies crumpled and huddled in the corner.

 

The flash of skin draws his eye and he tries not to think about Ren’s face—about how it might look now, about how long it’s been since he’s last seen it. Tries not to think about the night he’d left.

 

Just look, he tells himself—quick and clean like ripping off a bacta-patch—and he does. As always, Ren is no more than a man, gawkish and young, with large, awkward ears, swollen lips, and a face flushed red from crying. That same face that Hux has held between his hands time and time again, before— _before_. Before Starkiller. Before Snoke had ripped Ren away, sent him to be broken and remade. Before Snoke had cause to worry about divided loyalties.

 

It’s hard not to remember, how it was. He thinks Kylo has forgotten, but whether by his own hand or his Master’s Hux can’t be sure.

 

Ren curls in on himself, retreating further into the shadowed corner, his sobs awkward and childish. They shake his too-large frame until he hiccups with them, bright and petulant bursts of air that send him spiraling further into strained breaths.

 

“Ren,” says Hux.

 

He sees it before Ren can pull away, a lightning brand sear, blooming red and angry beneath the edged sleeve of Ren’s ridiculous tunic. Like a snake, he strikes, and his hand tightens around Ren’s wrist. The other man whimpers.

 

“Snoke did this to you?”

 

Ren shakes his head and whines again, attempting to pull away.

 

“Use your words,” commands Hux, as he begins to gently peel back the other man’s sleeve. The wound has a strange, star-burst pattern to it—like the coral pieces Hux would find as a child, washed ashore on the beaches of Arkanis. He absent-mindedly traces a finger along the pattern and is oddly surprised to find hot skin rather than calcified skeleton beneath his fingertips. They were beautiful, those coral pieces. Somehow all the more beautiful for knowing they were the sea-borne husks of some dead thing. (He tilts his head to look at Ren and sees the same, then tells himself he doesn’t.)

 

Ren sobs in quiet ferocity as Hux’s fingers moved upward, skimming along the planes of his arm.

 

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” asks Hux. Ren shakes his head as his teeth worry at his stupidly fat lip. Hux finds himself captivated by the sight.

 

“You tried to stop the storm, is that it?” prods Hux, keeping his voice steady—Ren is always best treated as though he were some injured animal, vicious and easily startled. “With the Force?” He can’t quite manage to keep the sneer from his voice at the word and he catches a flash of anger in Ren’s eyes. Well, if Ren expects him to be grateful for some foolhardy attempt to protect the ship by magic he has another storm coming.

 

He releases Ren’s arm, watching as the man folds into himself—a bird with a broken wing. Sweat damp curls fall over his face, dark as they catch the burgundy light.

 

Hux finds the medkit; removes the burn salve and some sterile gauze. Ren looks up at him as though he expects nothing more than for Hux to throw the supplies at him and leave. He certainly does not look like he expects the General to sit beside him on the floor, to dip his fingers into the salve and begin to work them delicately across his skin.

 

“I won’t thank you,” says Hux as he smears the cooling gel along the inside of Kylo’s arm. “If that’s what you’re expecting.”

 

The Knight says nothing. His eyes are locked on the point of contact between their bodies and he remains so deliberately still that it gives the impression of movement.

 

The silence and the darkness and the red light and Ren’s face unnerve Hux and so he continues even though he has received no answer. “Did you try to control it?”

 

The shake of Ren’s head forces Hux’s hand to tighten involuntarily. The Knight whines against the grip, body jerking. The movement is familiar to Hux, until he tells himself it isn’t.

 

“Lightning,” pants Ren, speaking finally after what feels like an eternity. “I called the storm. I—I didn’t mean to. I was only trying to make lightning.”

 

Hux’s hand tightens again against Ren’s wound, this time deliberate. Ren _writhes_ under his touch, letting out a sound that’s almost a moan.

 

“You _called_ it,” says Hux, suddenly furious. Furious at being tricked into helping Ren, at thinking that Ren had been trying to help _him_. “You brought it here,” he says, slowly, trying to understand the madness of Ren’s words. “The storm that will delay our progress by _weeks_ , the storm that could scuttle the ship.”

 

Ren’s eyes are wide. “Yes,” he says, breathing hard under the continued pressure of Hux’s fingertips.

 

“ _Why_?”

 

“I was—” Dark eyes meet Hux’s with a fevered intensity that’s almost beautiful. “I was so close Hux. I felt it. I felt the power of the dark side—it was right there, right there at my fingertips, and then—,” he freezes, guilty.

 

“And then _what_?”

 

“Nothing,” says Ren, sneering petulantly.

 

“You _selfish child._ ”

 

They are huddled so close that Hux feels rather than sees Ren’s reaction to his words. The Knight’s body heats, face flushing as his hips twitched forward—an awkward, instinctive jerk. Hux’s hands find Ren’s hair, knowing, somehow, _remembering_ , that this is what Ren needs. He tugs, hard.

 

“Say you’re sorry,” he commands.

 

Ren gasps sharply and arches his hips, slamming his knees down against the floor. “I’m sorry,” he growls.

 

“That’s not good enough,” replies Hux, releasing his hair and shoving Ren’s head away from him. He stands then, fully intending to leave. “You weren’t satisfied destroying my ship piece by piece so now you seek to down the whole thing at once, is that it?”

 

He doesn’t notice that Ren has stood with him until the Knight’s mouth finds his own, sloppy and rushed and _achingly_ familiar. Several seconds pass before Hux manages to gather the wits he’s dropped in a sudden well of arousal and hurt in order to sputter and push Ren away—ignoring the heat that flushes to his face, his chest, his groin.

 

“What—what do you think you’re doing?” he gasps, indignant.

 

“I—” For the first time Ren seems apologetic. “I thought that’s what you wanted—”

 

“What I want, Ren, is for this damned storm to stop.”

 

There’s a sudden movement outside and Hux realizes that the storm has thickened. The flashes come closer together now and each pulse of lightning cracks out in time with the heaving breaths of the man before him. Ren’s face twists with anguish, and he bites at his lips as though he doesn’t know how to stop.

 

The Knight reaches out, trailing bare fingers along the sides of Hux’s face until there’s a sharp _pop_ of static electricity between them. At the sting Hux jerks his face back and Ren groans aloud.

 

Hux has the sudden urge to kiss him in return. That strange, beautiful face that has been so close and yet so far for nearly a year now. This new, impossible creature that Snoke has returned in place of the Kylo he’d known. New scars and new stories all hidden beneath that mask—Ren’s own coral prison, calcified shell hiding the soft creature within.

 

A spear of lightning strikes the viewport and Ren flinches, body jerking. The Finalizer’s shield dissipates the stab of energy and the panel lights overhead brighten and then dim again with an acid hum.

 

“You can’t do that anymore,” orders Hux, trying to look anywhere but the Knight’s face and failing horribly as he watches Ren who watches the lightning. Failing horribly as he studies every curve of Kylo’s face, the way the light playes out across his lips, along the strong prow of his nose. The way he jumps at each crack of energy as though it seeks him out. The words tumble from Hux’s mouth before he can stop himself. “Do you even remember how it was? How _we_ were? Or has he taken that from you as well?”

 

“I _can’t,_ ” confesses Ren in sudden anguish.

 

“Can’t or won’t?” spits Hux, ashamed of how much the words cut him.

 

Ren recoils again and the sight brings a strange, raw anger up into the hollow of Hux’s throat. He is torn suddenly between wanting to comfort Ren and wanting to shake him, to press his face to the transparisteel and rub his nose against it—a hound being taught what it’s done wrong.

 

“You brought the storm?”

 

Ren nods.

 

“Then send it away.”

 

Ren’s ears flush red. Hux is struck with the sudden desire to pinch them between his fingers, thumb at them until Ren keens sharply for his mercy. He blinks and the thought dissipates.

 

“I told you, I didn’t mean to bring it.” Ren rubs furtively at his burned skin. “I lost control. I was—distracted.” His tone slips into anger, but whether it is anger at himself, at the storm, at _Hux_ —impossible to tell. “I’m sorry,” he says, but doesn’t mean it.

 

Hux keeps his eyes planted firmly on the wall beside Ren until a nearby crack of lightning startles him into staring. Ren’s face is magnetic—open and soft and lit with reddish light as though someone has started a fire within him. Hux’s mind goes hot and cold and open and closed all at once and he wonders somehow if _he_ is the storm, and if Ren has called him here by some mystical force.

 

“I didn’t,” says Ren, in response to his unspoken question. “Not on purpose.”

 

“But on accident?”

 

Ren shrugs at this and presses his forehead against the viewport of his own accord. He stills and the storm stills with him.

 

For a long moment nothing happens, but then Ren fidgets and the storm begins to build itself anew, a thudding _crack crack crack_ in the distance as lightning strikes the ship.

 

“I thought of you,” says Ren, finally, the words ripping themselves from between his lips in something like relief. “I held the lightning in my hands and I thought—I thought it would be everything I had ever wanted. Everything I needed to complete—but then—then I thought of you and it all went _wrong_.”

 

“ _Ren_ ,” breathes Hux, crossing the distance until he can pull Ren flush against his chest once more and everything feels like it did, even though nothing is as it was.

 

Ren’s lips meet his and for just a moment he lets it happen, lets everything around him fade away. Lets the memories of Ren’s mouth, the feel of his body, lets it all come rushing back and it is easy, so easy, to pretend this is just another dream—the same dream he’s had night after night after night—until Ren’s hand splays out across his lower back and its so warm and so heavy and so _real_ and the spell is broken. Hux pushes him away roughly.

 

“You can’t—I—you’ve no right to do this to me,” he sputters, hating how it slips into a whine.

 

“Me?” cries Ren, unabashed, “You’re the one— _kriff_ , Hux. You’re the one _haunting_ me. I see your face everywhere. I know you’re watching me, waiting for me to do— _something_ , but I don’t know _what_. I feel the ghost of your hands on me like you want to touch me but you don’t just reach out and _do it_ , you never do.”

 

“You _left_ ,” spits Hux in return, “You let him take you; you let him _brainwash_ you. _That’s_ why you see my face, that’s why you remember what its like, because—because this _isn’t the first time we’re doing this.”_

Ren’s eyes go wide and Hux is sure in that moment that he doesn’t remember, but then they narrow again and that certainty floods away. Has it all been a trick then, some Force manipulation sent to weaken him—to expose his vulnerabilities, to mock him?

 

“No, Hux—it wasn’t,” said Ren, “It _isn’t_.”

 

“ _Stay out of my head_ ,” warns Hux, shaking it as though to wrest Ren free of his thoughts. “You’ve had a _year_ , Ren. A year to come back to me. A year to remember what he’s taken from you, what you _gave_ him.”

 

Kylo’s eyes are hunted. “I know. _Hux_. I know.” His breath comes harsh. “There’s bits and pieces and smells and tastes and your _face_ , it’s always your face over and over—and I miss it, Hux, I _want_ it. I don’t know what it was but I want it.”

 

“Stop it,” sneers Hux. “You expect me to believe _that?_ You went with him Ren. You stood here, in this room, and you put on that ridiculous mask and _you said goodbye._ You let him take all of it. All of you.”

 

“ _Let_ him? Hux, I _begged_ him.” Ren’s voice cracks and suddenly he’s shouting, as they’ve shouted at each other so many times before. “ _You made me weak_ ,” he grits out between clenched teeth, dark eyes wild. “He promised—he promised he would fix it.”

 

Hux crosses the room before he can even think, tangling his hands into Ren’s hair, twisting the curls through his fingers and pulling and _kriff_ it’s exactly like it was—like they never stopped. His heart roars in his ears and the bottom drops out of his stomach.

 

Ren’s lips find his and his mouth is so hot and so sweet and so perfect and he tugs at Hux’s lower lip, worrying in his teeth, and Hux arches against him, slotting a leg between Ren’s thighs so Ren can grind down, gasping into his mouth. Their bodies remember.

 

Hux pulls back, breathless, tracing his finger along the jagged scar that rends Kylo’s face in two, pressing his thumb hard into the base of Ren’s jaw until he groans with it.

 

“You made me weak, too,” he whisperes, and it’s the truth. The truth that he disobeyed direct orders to retreat from Starkiller’s fallen carcass in order to find Ren himself. The truth that he ran out into the snow, against the advisement of his trooper detail, to heave Ren’s prone form into his arms and drag him until he couldn’t drag him any further—until the troopers carried them both back into the ship. The truth that they had to pull him, screaming, from Ren’s body—that he can still taste the tang of blood in his mouth, the smell of ozone in the air.

 

Ren’s hands find the clasp at his collar, large fingers tugging, eager, popping buttons free of their housings. Those hands splay out across his chest and Hux inhales sharply, wondering whether he should stop this—after all, Ren, Ren still has a chance to be free of this madness.

 

“No,” mumbles Ren against his neck, tongue flicking out to trace its way along muscle and sinew. “I want it. All of it.”

 

Ren’s hand cups between his legs, long fingers stoking up the length of Hux’s cock as it thickens. Hux tilts his head back and bites his lips, holding back a moan.

 

Ren watches with interest as Hux’s face slackens and pulls taut again with the effort of staying silent. With the fear of revealing too much. “You missed me,” he whispers, grinning.

 

“Stop talking,” growls Hux, and as if to prove his point he slides two fingers into Ren’s mouth, pressing them down against his tongue until Ren moans around them, thick and muffled. But Ren, never satisfied, shoves Hux back against the wall, arching and tugging with hips and hands, rucking Hux’s pants down around his legs until he stands in nothing but his underthings—Ren grins down at him and for a moment it is almost as though he remembers.

 

The Knight's hands work out across the planes of Hux’s chest, finding his nipples and tweaking hard—the bite of pain a pleasurable contrast to the heat that pools in the pit of his stomach. Someone makes a small, breathless keen and Hux is surprised to realize that it’s _him._ He grits his teeth together to stifle it, afraid to admit how much he’s missed this, how much he’s wanted it.

 

Ren slides to his knees, resting his head for a moment against the top of Hux’s thigh, so close and yet so far from his cock that Hux thinks he might cry out from the sheer wanting. Ren’s fingers trace subtle circles up the backs of his thighs until they meet the curve of his ass and settle there, cupping at Hux and pulling him forward until Ren can mouth at the length of his cock through the thin fabric of his underwear and Hux can’t stay silent any longer, groaning and writhing under each hot breath.

 

“Ren, _ah,_ fuck.”

 

Ren grins up at him, eyes dark like the void of space. “Ask nicely.”

 

“Please, Ren.” And then, because he knows what Ren really wants, “ _Kylo._ ”

 

Ren’s hands rip the General’s underthings down with one swift movement and finally, _finally_ , he springs free, cock proud and ruby flushed. With a wicked grin, Ren bends to take only the very tip into his mouth and hold it there. The sight is like an electric shock, racing down Hux’s spine to pool deep in his belly. He moans softly and his hips jerk forward without warning.

 

Ren wastes no time, trailing sloppy kisses along Hux’s length, the hot spike of breath on his thighs leaving him shuddering. After a moment the Knight takes Hux’s cock into his mouth and sucks firmly.

 

The response is immediate. Hux’s head drops backward and his eyes flutter shut, a sigh-moan slipping out between swollen lips. He tangles his fingers into Ren’s hair as the Knight slides back down along his length, leaving him achingly hard against the velveteen press of Ren's cheeks as he sucks in.

 

He tugs sharply at Ren’s hair and feels a moan engulf his cock. “Wait, Ren,” he orders, and pulls his cock free with an obscene _pop._ Ren whines at the loss but makes no move to follow, sitting back meekly on his heels as he takes in the sight of Hux—wide-eyed and desperate and wanting.

 

He stumbles to Ren’s bedside table, groping around in the darkness until he finds it, in the same place as always—the regulation lubricant that comes inside every medkit. He looks up, triumphant, to see Ren: head cocked, brow furrowed.

 

“You really have been here before,” he says.

 

“You thought I was lying?” asks Hux, incredulous. “Though knowing where you keep your slick isn’t exactly the best reason to believe me.” He grins softly as Kylo’s frown deepens. “That’s where most people keep it, Ren.”

 

Ren growls at that, lunging forward to grasp Hux’s waist between large hands. “Oh, and you know where _most people_ keep it, do you?”

 

“Don’t be jealous,” tuts Hux. “This is all your fault.”

 

“Give it here,” orders Ren and Hux does so, but not before slicking up his own hand. He watches as Ren dips several fingers into the lubricant, coating them till they’re sloppy and dripping. His breath catches in his throat as the Knight reaches around to work himself open, thrusting in one finger and then, after a moment, the next.

 

Hux slides a slick hand over his cock as he takes in the sight, reveling in the scarlet flush that mantles Ren’s features as he bucks his hips back onto his own hand, panting hard. Grinning, Hux steps forward to take Ren’s neglected cock in hand, slicking it and sliding it against his own.

 

“Ah, Hux, yes. _Fuck,_ ” groans Ren as Hux grips their cocks in one hand, hot flesh sliding together. He pumps up and down slowly, thumbing at Ren’s slit until it leaks precome down his length and the Knight writhes under the attention. Ren wraps his free hand around Hux’s—his hands are large, the pads of his fingers rough and his grip almost painfully tight, and with each movement Hux’s vision goes white around the edges, blurred with the steady build of pleasure.

 

It’s almost too much, too soon, and Hux quickly tugs Ren’s arm away—forgetting the burn in the process as he sinks his fingertips into Ren’s wrist. The Knight arches forward and _whines_ as Hux’s grip brings pain and pleasure both. His hands find Hux’s waist again, nearly meeting around the General’s slender frame as he pushes him backwards toward the bed.

 

He shoves Hux down roughly and straddles him, thick, muscled thighs bracketing Hux’s own on either side and Hux squirmes beneath him, loving the weight of Ren as he settles himself down. _Kriff_ , he’d missed this.

 

With no more than a hissed breath Ren sinks down on to him and _fuck,_ he can feel the stretch and the tightness around his cock and he wonders if Ren’s body remembers this, even if Ren himself doesn’t.

 

“It does,” gasps Ren, rocking back and forth with short, tight motions. Hux’s hands find his waist—moving him till he’s placed just right—and angles up into him, shoving in slowly until Ren keens hard against his neck. “I tried with my fingers, _ah_ , but it wasn’t the same—I—,” each breath is punctuated with a downward press of his hips and it goes on forever—until Hux can’t imagine going any further because there is no way he could stand the hot clutch of Ren’s body for another second and then he’s bottoming out, balls snug against the sweat-sticky curve of Ren’s ass.

 

For a moment there is nothing but stillness and short, choked breaths. Ren’s arms are braced on either side of Hux’s head and he finds himself hypnotized by the coral-pattern burn as it dances with each flex of Ren’s muscle.

 

“Ah, _hah_ , move Hux, please, I can’t—”

 

And Hux obliges, rocking up into Ren’s slick heat. Ren’s cock is pinned between them, tight and stretched against his belly, flushed red, throbbing with each jerk of Hux’s hips.

 

“ _Sh_ ,” croons Hux as Ren whines into the side of his neck. Hux is struck with the sudden urge to bite him, mark him, to tear at the soft flesh above him until Ren bruises purple and black and can never again forget the feel of Hux beneath him, within him. Never again forget where he belongs.

 

He tags Ren’s collarbone with his teeth, nipping till it flushes red and welts.

 

“More,” gasps Ren and Hux bites into the thick muscle at the join of neck and shoulder and the overhead lights brighten and dim again, all but one panel in the corner which groww brighter, _brighter_ , _brighter,_ until it bursts with a soft _pop_ , plunging the alcove into darkness.

 

Ren’s cock jerks between them and Hux knows he’s close, knows it by the swell of the storm as it crashes against the viewport, crackling bright with each sting of energy.

 

“Hux, please--” Ren starts and has to stop, gasping, as Hux thrusts _just right_ , the angle of his hips as he cants them upward turning Ren into so much jelly.

 

“Oh, _yes,_ ” growls Hux and bites Ren’s neck again, punctuating each mark of his teeth with a hard thrust of his hips. Hux’s feet begin to tingle with the jangling bee-bright buzz of impending orgasm and he flexes his hips, fucking up into Ren with renewed intensity.

 

“A-ah, _fuck_ , Hux—don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

 

The slick noise as he works in and out of Ren is coupled with a tumbling, scrambling litany of obscenities. “Fuck I’ve missed you like this,” he whispers against Ren’s throat, the sweat slicked darkness of his hair wild as he throws his head back, eyes half-lidded—desperate and undone.

 

“Harder,” gasps Ren, pressing his burned arm into Hux’s hand, begging for the pain. Hux pins his wrist, flexing his fingers until Ren cries out with it, tilting his head back as his mouth drops open, red and kiss-swollen and slick with spit. Hux thrusts furiously, keeping pace with the words as they pour from Ren’s lips, “ _So close so close so close_ —”

 

“Fuck, _Kylo_ , come for me.”

 

The Knight tenses—whole body taut; a prey animal caught in the gaze of a predator—and comes, spilling thick ropes of come between their bodies, painting a star-streaked galaxy across Hux’s chest. The lights flicker and hum as the storm spits and rages around them and Hux has never felt so together and so alone at once. And then it crashes down as Ren clenches around the shaft of his cock, silken and tight, and Hux follows after, spilling into him with a choked moan.

 

They collapse down onto the bed, and Ren rolls off of him—slowly, as though loath to give up even the slightest contact. Hux shudders as he feels his softening cock slip free, watches a slick dribble of come leak down Ren’s thigh. The sight raises goosebumps along his shoulders, somehow tangible proof of their misdeeds.

 

This can’t continue, he tells himself. It’ll only become what it was before, a weakness for Snoke to take hold of and rip apart, for him to use to grind away at his tools—reshape them until they better suit his purposes.

 

“Did you really beg to forget?” he asks, quiet as he pushes sweat-slicked hair out of his eyes.

 

Ren’s shoulders roll in a shrug. “He tells me I did.” He flopps over onto his back, eyes raking along the ceiling. “He doesn’t have any reason to lie to me.” His voice sounds certain, but his eyes flick to Hux, gauging his reaction.

 

Hux, who can think of a thousand reasons to lie, Hux, who remembers pet names whispered only half in jest—sir, master, _emperor_ —merely nods and strokes Kylo’s hair with a softness he wasn’t aware he possessed.

 

“I’m sure you’re right.”

 

He sits up and begins to dress, pulling on uniform pants only to turn and see Ren’s eyes, wide and bright with panic. Ren fights himself for a moment before the words spill from his mouth.

 

“Don’t—don’t go, Hux, please. I need to know—I’ve had this dream so many times—I need to know that this was real.” He grinds his teeth together so tight that Hux can see the flex of his jaw and his hands clutch at each other in something like desperation, nails digging into his burn, grounding him to the present.

 

Hux isn’t sure what to say so he simply clambers back onto the bed, splayed out on his knees and hesitant, unsure what Ren wants from him. Ren makes the decision for him, anyway, curling Hux down into a half-moon and tucking himself around him, one large hand splayed over Hux’s hip. It’s how it always was, even if Ren doesn’t know it anymore.

 

“And you?” asks Hux, small and choked in the hollow of his throat, and he hates himself for asking. “If you go again, will you come back?”

 

Ren doesn’t answer, only presses his lips to Hux’s neck, soft and crooked and warm—somehow as warm as the fading kiss of lightning against the hull of the ship.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> There's a (very smutty) art piece that goes along with this work. [Enjoy!](http://orange-lightsaber.tumblr.com/post/149514967007/illustration-from-lightning-on-ao3-nsfw-version).


End file.
